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Can you still become a doctor if you're infected with Hep B?


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I came from a relatively poor background but due to a tremendous convenient miracles, my family managed to move to Canada...

 

My dad just got his blood test done and turns out he had Hep B.... it looks like its been there for a while so if he had it before I was born... then yea...

 

 

So... before I complete my first year university doing bio sci... if I have this infectious disease can I still become a doctor?

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Yes, you still CAN be a doctor, with hep B... and it doesn't have to be in radiology

 

http://www.cpso.on.ca/uploadedFiles/members/membership/Blood-Borne-Communicable-Diseases-in-Physicians%5B1%5D.pdf

 

exactly - there is actually a wide, wide range of things you can do - and remember even if a particular task is "off limits" to you that many of them modern style team based practises can provide enough overlap to overcome those without significant difficulty (I am thinking of some fields people haven't mentioned yet like family and internal medicine, which combined is a huge fraction of the doctors out there).

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I came from a relatively poor background but due to a tremendous convenient miracles, my family managed to move to Canada...

 

My dad just got his blood test done and turns out he had Hep B.... it looks like its been there for a while so if he had it before I was born... then yea...

 

 

So... before I complete my first year university doing bio sci... if I have this infectious disease can I still become a doctor?

 

Does your mother have it too? It's vertically transmitted, and even if she does have it, there's a chance it was NOT transmitted to you. (Although it is low.)

 

The risk of sexual transmission between your parents aren't that high (although there is still the possibility), so even if your father has it, that does not necessarily mean that your mother, and therefore you has this disease.

 

You can definitely still be a doctor if you put your mind to it : ). The thing I'd worry about are the symptoms associated with disease, which vary among different people. Most of the time it is asymptomatic, and it doesn't affect you much in any way (you won't notice it at all). But on the rarer cases, it can have a myriad of effects such as trouble sleeping, body pain/sores, etc - all of which may be difficult for you especially when you are trying to be a doctor.

 

Just my two cents, hoped that help.

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Hello,

 

I just asked my mom (who also happens to be a physician and faculty at an Ontario med school) and she said that there would be no restrictions for you. Even surgeons who are infected are not currently banned, but they would be required to inform their patients of their condition due to the nature of surgery.

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